FourPlay put the ‘eclectic’ back into ‘electric string quartet’ with their second new single, ‘Wish’, a powerful, haunting ballad about living in a climate-changed world. As with June’s rocking new single, Bound, the digital-only release also includes archival remixes of FourPlay songs, and the band will play 5 east coast shows in September to promote it.

FourPlay, who have been wowing audiences around the world for over 20 years with both their radical reinventions of pop songs and their wildly eclectic original material, have often had environmental and political themes in their music.

‘Wish’ takes this to the next step: a haunting ballad with tones of Not Drowning Waving and ‘70s folk protest songs, with powerful lyrics delivered passionately by Tim Hollo and Lara Goodridge, intricate viola lines from Shenzo Gregorio, and a soaring, poignant cello solo from Peter Hollo.

‘Wish’ began life when the band was trapped behind rising floodwaters while enjoying the Bundanon Trust’s Artist-In-Residency program in the Southern Highlands of NSW. Tim’s older daughter kept calling to make sure he was OK and, at one point, said to him “I wish that I’d been born before climate change was happening.” Tim, a long-time environmental activist and founder of Green Music Australia, said those words “hit me in the guts”. The conversation inspired this song, with the message that “we can’t wish away the times we’ve been given; we have to do with them what we can.”

Produced by Justin Tressider (Macy Gray, Wolfmother) and FourPlay at Sony Music Studios, Sydney and Hydrofunk HQ, Mullumbimby, Wish is classic FourPlay sound with a new flavour, and has already had audiences moved to tears at live performances.

The release also comes with a powerful and evocative music video by Heidi Lee Douglas, director of Defendant 5, Little Lamb, and enviro horror short Devil Woman (recently premiered at Fantasia International Film Festival).

Wish includes five archival remixes from the band’s Now To The Future album, unreleased until now. Indeed it is the album’s title track, Now To The Future being reworked as glitchy post-rock by Brisbane’s Chris Perren, experimental noise by Canberra’s Shoeb Ahmad, and two very different, beautiful drone works from Adelaide’s Panoptique Electrical and Melbourne’s Part Timer. The EP closes with a radical electro-pop reworking of “You’ve Changed Your Tune” by Sydney’s ollo.

Don’t miss FourPlay as they showcase Wish along with tracks from their entire career at a venue near you.